You Cannot Control
What
is Wild
On View at Taft Gardens until June 28th
by Natasha Wheat
2022/23 Taft Residency Artist
Photo by Marc Alt
This exhibition is a flower shop
This exhibition is a bedtime story,
the protagonist is a heroic plant
This exhibition is a warning sign
Heterotopias are what Michél Foucault describes as spaces that exist so that we can maintain our perceived Utopias. Examples are schools; bathrooms; mental institutions; nursing homes; and here, the burn piles of plants that have been gardened off the stage. Backstages are exciting places, messy spaces, chaotic, exclusive spaces for those already excluded.
The burn pile is an ashtray where
our wildest dreams,
and deepest fears go
to become nothing,
or nothing of themselves
Over eight months, the artist gathers outcasts and documents them before they are burned, and then responds, again and again, forming compositions, often on paper.
In this work,
sometimes we see reflections,
and sometimes we do not
Some of this work may biodegrade, some of this work is burned, some of this work is made from floodwater and pigment.
Belief systems are what stand between our hero and her victory.
Boliviana Negra is Coca variety that grows in the jungles of South America; the daughter of the plants that would not die. Millions of gallons of glyphosate were dropped from above, and the resistors came together to birth her. She replaces an Ecuadorian rose in our flower shop neon sign, because she is not compliant.
Sacred plants become enemy plants in shifting contexts
The river rose, and then she fell, leaving marks that would be erased by time. Fire roads were built back over her, and she settled within confinement.
Perhaps
she believed she was happy,
or perhaps
love and safety
are stories that we tell ourselves,
while driving on asphalt,
powered by gas
Exhibition Text by Natasha Wheat